Symbols
94Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Belarusian alphabet
The 32 letters of the Belarusian Cyrillic alphabet in their own order, capital and small. І, Ў and the apostrophe give Belarusian its own look. Дж and Дз are written as two letters.
Apostrophe and stress mark
The apostrophe comes after certain consonants before я, е, ё, ю or і: сям’я, з’ява, аб’ява. ’ is the usual curly apostrophe, ʼ the letter apostrophe that keeps the word in one piece for software. The combining acute marks stress in dictionaries and textbooks: type it right after the vowel, малако́.
Łacinka: the Belarusian Latin alphabet
The letters of Łacinka that are not plain A–Z, capital and small. Ŭ is ў, Ł the hard л, Č Š Ž are ч ш ж, and Ć Ń Ś Ź the soft consonants. The official romanization of Belarusian place names uses Č Š Ž Ŭ Ć Ń Ś Ź too.
Punctuation
Belarusian quotes with «ёлачкі» (angle quotes) and uses „лапкі“ for a quote inside a quote. The dash stands in for a missing “is” (Мінск — сталіца) and opens dialogue lines; № is the number sign.
Where it's spoken
Belarus, where Belarusian is an official language beside Russian, then the Belarusian communities of Ukraine and of Podlaskie in north-eastern Poland.
On the map
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The Belarusian alphabet: 32 letters from А to Я
The Belarusian alphabet in order is А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З І Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ў Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Ы Ь Э Ю Я: 32 letters, each with a capital and a small form. It is written in Cyrillic, like Russian and Ukrainian, and most letters are shared with them, but Belarusian spelling follows pronunciation closely, so words are written much as they are said.
The clearest case is akanne: an unstressed о is pronounced, and written, as а. So milk is малако and water вада, and the letter о appears almost only in stressed syllables. Ё is always written, never replaced by е, and Э is common because Belarusian keeps hard consonants hard in writing: рэдка (rarely), тэатр. Ж, Ш, Ч and Р are always hard, so they are followed by ы, а, э rather than і, я, е: чытаць (to read), шырокі (wide), рэка (river).
Two sounds are spelled with pairs of letters, дж and дз, as in дзень (day) and джала (sting). The soft forms of д and т are said and written дз and ц: дзеці (children), цёплы (warm). Doubled consonants are written out too: жыццё (life), вяселле (wedding).
Belarusian's own letters: І, Ў and the apostrophe
Two letters, І and Ў, give Belarusian its own look, together with the apostrophe. І і is the vowel [i]: і (and), Мінск, пісаць. The dotted і is the same character that Ukrainian uses, and шч is written with two letters: шчасце (happiness).
Ў ў, the short u, is the letter every Belarusian knows as their own. It is a non-syllabic u, a sound like the English w, and it comes after a vowel: воўк (wolf), праўда (truth), доўгі (long). Even the little word у (in) turns into ў after a vowel: ён у Мінску but яна ў Мінску. Because it never starts a syllable, the capital Ў is rare outside text in all capitals.
Belarusian uses an apostrophe after certain consonants before я, е, ё, ю or і: сям’я (family), з’ява (phenomenon), аб’ява (announcement). In print it is the curly ’; software that needs the apostrophe to count as part of a word uses the letter apostrophe ʼ , and keyboards type the straight '. Ь, the soft sign, marks a soft consonant: соль, Беларусь.
Łacinka, the Belarusian Latin alphabet
Belarusian has also been written in Latin letters, called Łacinka (лацінка). It was widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries: Kastuś Kalinoŭski's underground newspaper Mužyckaja praŭda of 1862–63 was printed in it, and some writers and websites still use it today. Its special letters are Ć Č Ł Ń Ś Š Ŭ Ź Ž, with ch for х: Biełaruś, čytać, praŭda.
Ŭ is ў, Č Š Ž are ч ш ж, Ć Ń Ś Ź are the soft ць нь сь зь, and Ł is the hard л, so that plain L stands for the soft one. Belarus replaced its former official place-name romanization rules in 2023 with a new instruction covering names from both Belarusian and Russian.
How to type Belarusian letters: keyboard layout, Alt codes and phones
Windows ships a Belarusian keyboard layout: add Belarusian under Settings › Time & language › Language & region. It follows the Russian ЙЦУКЕН layout, with І where Russian has И, Ў where Russian has Щ, and the apostrophe where Russian has Ъ. Linux has the same layout under Belarusian. For a single letter in Word, type its code and press AltX: 0456 for і, 0406 for І, 045E for ў, 040E for Ў, 0451 for ё and 2019 for ’.
On a Mac, the Unicode Hex Input source types any of them: hold Option and type 045E for ў. On phones, Gboard and SwiftKey both offer a Belarusian keyboard with і, ў and the apostrophe; add it as a second language next to English. In HTML, ў is ў, Ў Ў, і і and І І. Or click any letter on this page to copy it.
Where Belarusian is spoken
Belarusian is an East Slavic language, the closest relative of Ukrainian and Russian. CLDR estimates about 3 million speakers, around 2.5 million of them in Belarus, where it is an official language together with Russian; in everyday life, especially in the cities, Russian is heard more often, while Belarusian lives on in villages, books, songs, schools and among people who choose it on purpose.
Outside Belarus there are an estimated 300,000 speakers in Ukraine and over 200,000 in Poland, mostly in the Podlaskie region around Białystok and Hajnówka, plus communities abroad. For the neighbouring alphabets see our Ukrainian, Russian, Polish and Lithuanian collections, and for the country's flag and emoji, the Belarus collection.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyBelarusian Alphabet & Letters combos
13Worth knowing
- Polotsk, one of the oldest towns in Belarus, has a monument to a single letter: a stone Ў, unveiled in 2003.
- Belarusian has two Cyrillic spellings: the official one, reformed in 1933 and revised since, and the older Taraškievica of 1918, still used by many writers and independent media. Wikipedia has a separate Belarusian edition for each.
- Belarusians count Francysk Skaryna's Psalter, printed in Prague in 1517, as their first printed book; it is among the earliest books printed in any East Slavic language.
- Ў is shared with the Cyrillic alphabet of Uzbek, where it writes a vowel rather than the w-like sound it has in Belarusian.
Questions people ask
7How many letters are in the Belarusian alphabet?
32: А Б В Г Д Е Ё Ж З І Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ў Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Ы Ь Э Ю Я. The apostrophe ’ is used in words like сям’я but is not counted as a letter, and дж and дз are written with two letters.
What is the difference between the Belarusian and Russian alphabet?
Both are Cyrillic and share most letters. Belarusian has 32 letters, with І і, Ў ў and an apostrophe after certain consonants before я, е, ё, ю or і; Russian has 33, with И и, Щ щ and Ъ ъ. Belarusian spelling follows pronunciation closely: малако for milk, where Russian writes молоко.
What is the letter Ў in Belarusian?
Ў (small ў) is the short u, a non-syllabic sound like the English w. It comes after vowels, as in воўк (wolf) and праўда (truth), and the word у (in) becomes ў after a vowel. It is the best-known letter of the Belarusian alphabet.
Is Belarusian the same as Russian?
No. Belarusian is a separate East Slavic language with its own alphabet, spelling, grammar and much of its own vocabulary; it is closer to Ukrainian in many words. Russian speakers understand some of it, but not all.
Is there a Belarusian Latin alphabet?
Yes, Łacinka, with the letters Ć Č Ł Ń Ś Š Ŭ Ź Ž beside plain A–Z. It was common in the 19th and early 20th centuries and is still used by some writers; Belarus replaced its former official place-name romanization rules in 2023.
How do I type Belarusian letters on my keyboard?
Add the Belarusian layout in Windows (Settings › Time & language) or on your phone with Gboard; і, ў and the apostrophe are where Russian и, щ and ъ sit. In Word, type 045E and press AltX for ў, 0456 for і.
How do I copy and paste Belarusian letters?
Click or tap any letter on this page to copy it, then paste with CtrlV, CmdV or long-press and Paste on a phone.
